Gradient Investments LLC Has $13.76 Million Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Gradient Investments LLC trimmed its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 2.7% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 39,104 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 1,085 shares during the quarter. Gradient Investments LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $13,756,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new stake in Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the third quarter valued at about $30,000. Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter worth about $34,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC raised its position in Accenture by 607.1% in the 3rd quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $35,000 after buying an additional 85 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Berbice Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $35,000. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have recently commented on ACN shares. Susquehanna boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. TD Cowen upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $321.00 to $400.00 in a report on Monday, September 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price target on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $383.74.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In related news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,062.20. This trade represents a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,136 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $362.07, for a total value of $2,945,801.52. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 12,188 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,412,909.16. The trade was a 40.03 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 17,332 shares of company stock valued at $6,172,719 in the last ninety days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Accenture Price Performance

NYSE:ACN opened at $362.65 on Friday. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $357.19 and its 200 day simple moving average is $346.86. The firm has a market cap of $226.94 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.42, a P/E/G ratio of 3.20 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $3.27 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.69 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.63%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 49.66%.

Accenture Profile

Accenture plc, a professional services company, provides strategy and consulting, industry X, song, and technology and operation services worldwide. The company offers application services, including agile transformation, DevOps, application modernization, enterprise architecture, software and quality engineering, data management; intelligent automation comprising robotic process automation, natural language processing, and virtual agents; and application management services, as well as software engineering services; strategy and consulting services; data and analytics strategy, data discovery and augmentation, data management and beyond, data democratization, and industrialized solutions comprising turnkey analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions; metaverse; and sustainability services.